Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/516

 494 DECLINE & FALL OF EOMAN EMPIRE were studied with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville : the Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of Mecca ; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the west- ward of the Tigris. -^2 252 The Arabic of the Koran is taught as a dead language in the college of Mecca. By the Danish traveller, this ancient idiom is compared to the Latin ; the vTilgar tongue of Hejaz and Yemen to the Italian ; and the Arabian dialects of Syria, Egypt, Africa, &c. to the Proven9al, Spanish, and Portuguese (Niebuhr, Description de 1' Arable, p. 74, &c. ).